Confess Your Love As Well As Your Folly
by Geniusgirl The Original
Summary: You did not think when you sent me to the brink / You desired my attention but denied my affections OR Peter and Wendy argue. All this for a kiss?


**AN: **The second half of a Secret Santa gift for my darling Yasmin. Beware lots of teenage miscommunication and reference to the 2003 film.

**confess your love as well as your folly**

_Oh, tell me now, where was my fault_  
_In loving you with my whole heart?_

When Wendy Darling arrived in Neverland, her landing was two parts terrifying, one part devastatingly romantic. She was dropped by the Shadow that offered adventure from a point high above the trees. For a moment, all she could think was that it had all been a terrible mistake. What sensible girl took the hand of a Shadow and allowed herself to be flown across realms into the unknown? She had expected pain and death but instead found herself enveloped by warmth. Strong, wiry arms wrapped around her and she blinked her eyes open to the sight of one of the most attractive boys she had ever met.

Peter Pan stared curiously down at her with a bemused smirk on his handsome face. His energy was so distracting it took Wendy some time to realize that they were floating feet above the ground. When she did realize it, she scrambled to hold onto him better, thin arms winding tight around broad shoulders as she shrieked. Contrary to all expectations of the wicked Pan Wendy would eventually come to know, Peter let her clamber around him, her hair and heart fluttering in the strong breeze, and grasped her tighter to him. He placed his lips intimately - brazenly - against the soft curve of her temple and murmured, "Calm down, Bird; I've got you."

And from that moment on, he did. In the decades that would later come to pass, no matter how vehemently she tried to deny it, a part of Wendy Darling's heart always belonged to Peter Pan.

#

As the first girl brought to the island by the Shadow in all the years of Peter's rule, Wendy Darling, during her initial stay, was treated very differently from all the other children who had washed up on the island's shores. She was a novelty, a rare and unique toy that Peter had found and kept to himself. She was different and delicate and in her newness precious. Wendy was treated like a treasure, like a jewel, like a _queen_.

Peter played all her new games, took her to all the old familiar places and watched her delight at his island with a hungry, possessive gleam in his eyes. He taught her the savagery of Neverland's wilderness and smiled as she, with a will of iron to match his own, forced behavior onto every obstacle. He let her set the rules and dictate the games, learned to appreciate her specific brand of mischief. But then, one day, she realized that she wanted to go home.

Peter would blame Hook if he could. A chance meeting with the pirate, a little run-in to torment the pirate crew for Wendy's enjoyment, and something had changed in the girl. Something about Hook, about him being a man, had changed Peter's Wendy-bird.

Wendy wanted suddenly to grow up, to leave the island with no time, to go back to her home where adulthood and responsibility awaited. She wanted to no longer be a girl, she wanted to become a woman. A woman fit for a man, a woman who could be a mother. A woman, Peter realized, who could be a _wife._

Selfish, possessive boy that he was, something in Peter seethed at the thought of his Wendy with another man. The idea of any man - be he faceless, timid and boring like Wendy's father or a man who was simply a worse version of Peter himself like Hook - touching what Peter had claimed as his made Peter's blood boil. But what was worse was that Wendy herself wanted these men. She had all of Neverland laid at her feet, its king on his knees, and she wanted none of it. She had no place in her heart for a _boy_; she wanted a _man_.

Or so Peter thought.

He took Wendy, one last time, to see the faeries who lived in the hollows of the woods around his Thinking Tree. It might have been a thinly veiled, desperate attempt to convince her to choose him; Peter would never admit it to himself if it was. But he took her there, where they had danced in the faery light, where he had spent hours watching her watch the intricate workings of Fae society, where he had almost kissed her so many times despite himself. He knew it was her favourite place on the island.

They watched the faerie monarchs dance - Wendy's eyes trained on the delicate movements of the king and queen, Peter's eyes trained on the girl who could be his queen. Abruptly, Wendy's gaze shifted and their eyes met. Peter, caught but never surprised, simply raised an eyebrow at the nervous look she wore.

(The twisting in his gut was not dread - Peter Pan feared nothing and no one. Peter Pan never lost, neither at games nor the things that belonged to him.)

"I would like to give you something, Peter," Wendy murmured softly.

Peter's eyes widened fractionally. What could she possibly have to give him? She had come with nothing but the nightgown she wore and everything on the island was already his. Still, Peter was intrigued as was perpetually the case with his Wendy-bird.

"What is it?" he asked, tone all curiosity.

She bit her lip as was her wont. Peter had noticed the habit early on, when his eyes were first drawn to the plump redness of her mouth. He still wanted to replace her teeth with his own but the violence of his own longing prevented it. Peter was a boy of fleeting, whimsical emotions. He laughed readily, grinned easily, angered quickly and forgot even faster. With Wendy his emotions ran deep, they built rather than ebbed. He could not free himself of them the way he could others.

They were deep, dangerous, _big_. Adult. They repulsed him just as strongly as they enticed him.

"I should like to give you a-" she paused and licked her lips. Peter followed the trail of her tongue with hungrily, his black heart beating an eager tattoo in his hollow chest. When he looked her in the eyeS again, there was a world of feeling in their blue depths, a vortex of desires and lovers' promises, whispers of what-ifs, ideas of life away from Neverland, vague hints of all the adventures that came with age.

"A kiss," Wendy finished.

Peter knew what a kiss was, knew what it meant, but there was something in the tone of Wendy's voice that was unsure. He wondered, if he gave her the chance, if she would take him the way he wanted to take her? There was a secret part of him that thought that if she was brave enough, he could be brave enough too. If she could ask him for what she wanted, he could only be worthy of her if he could give it.

He gambled, as was his wont, and stuck out a hand feigning innocence. Wendy's face fell as her eyes drifted down from his face to his boots. She did not see the hope, the plea, in Peter's expression.

He willed her silently to be brave enough for the both of them. Just this once, only this once ever in all their existences, would she have to bear this burden. If she could, he would carry her through eternity in whatever way she wanted.

Wendy did not look up. Her voice was a small, quiet, dejected sound when she asked, "Don't you know what a kiss is?"

"I shall know when you give me one," he dared her.

Slowly, ever so slowly, she raised her head. Her eyes were full of tears and Peter knew that she had failed them. He felt rage well up inside him like never before. It was tinged with despair, with hopelessness, with pain. It was heartbreak though he did not know it. He watched, absolutely still, as she lifted one pale, tiny hand and placed a small silver thimble in his upturned palm.

He clenched his fingers tight around the cold little object. If it were made of anything else, he would have crushed it. He smiled a tight smile, eyes dark and closed off, then brought two fingers to his lips. Wendy's eyes widened as his shrill whistle filled the air.

"What are you doing?" she asked in a panic.

Wearing his cruelty like regalia, he told her, "I have no place on my island for cowards, Wendy-bird."

His shadow was already hovering in the air above them awaiting instructions but Peter could not resist one last act of vengeance. It was a temporary balm for the ache in his chest and throat but he never claimed not to be petty. He reached out and grabbed her frail wrist. With a hard yank he pulled her body into his and wrapped his free hand in her curls. Then, he pulled her hair, tilted her head back and covered her mouth with his own.

It was not the kiss he had wanted to give her. It was a kiss he took from her instead. He plundered he mouth with his tongue, pried her hidden kiss free with lips and teeth and _swallowed_ it. He stole her kiss and her breath and left her gasping to the sky.

"Thanks for the thimble," he whispered right before his shadow picked her up and flew away.

#

In all the years of her second stay in Neverland, Wendy had never found the faeries again. Felix had said vaguely that they had all disappeared when the skies had permanently darkened. There was something in his tone that hinted at sinister things Wendy preferred not to contemplate. She knew Peter had driven out the natives, knew he had subjugated the mermaids to the point of near-extinction. He had turned the Lost Boys from mischievous to malicious. She could not (did not want to) imagine how his wrath had befallen the faeries.

Still, every once in a while, Wendy liked to look for something to remind her of better times, of when the island -when Peter- was warm and welcoming. Her search took her across the length of the island to the pixie wood forest. The nostalgia, the ache in her heart, drove her to seek out the fae.

(Tinkerbell was not a Neverland faerie so, although she was a good friend to Wendy, Tinkerbell's presence did not carry the same significance. Tinkerbell did not remind Wendy of moonlit dances, gentle hands, soft green eyes and, for all its pain, her first kiss.)

Wendy had not even realised she was at the base of Peter's Thinking Tree until he was in front of her.

"Looking for something?" he taunted.

He knew fully well what her walks like this were for. His disdain for them was well known. The part of Wendy that never recovered from her heartbreak, that never forgot how Peter had played with her, had humiliated her with his pretended ignorance, _hated _him for it. The part of her that never stopped loving him wept. She refused to show him either.

Wendy turned on her heel and started trekking in the opposite direction. She gave no answer.

Peter materialized in front of her, as was expected. He was grinning, in a good mood somehow, and Wendy was even more cautious.

"Come now, Bird, don't go yet," he laughed but there was darkness in his cheer, an undercurrent in his tone. He lowered his voice suddenly. "This place has so many memories for us, doesn't it?"

She blinked. Peter did not talk about _before_.

They stared each other down. She knew he was daring her to say it. To mention the disaster of a confession she had attempted, that mockery of a lover's first kiss they had shared.

"You sent me away from here," she finally acquiesced.

Peter smirked at her evasion. "I did."

"We watched the faeries dance here," she added.

Peter's jaw tightened. "We did."

"We danced in that space over there," she said with a nod to two trees on their left.

Wendy watched the bobbing of Peter's Adam's apple as he swallowed thickly. "It was a stupid game to play."

"It wasn't a game to me," she replied hotly.

"It was a stupid, girly game," he insisted.

He started walking into her, backing her up against the nearest tree. Wendy gave him the ground. It was his island after all. She would not give him the satisfaction of reducing her heart and her feelings to mere foolishness however.

"It may have been a stupid game to _you_, Peter Pan, but it wasn't a game to me," she declared, nose in the air and expression steeled.

Something in Peter seemed to snap. He snarled, "No, you were just a _coward._"

Wendy gaped at him. There was pain in his voice; some raw, throbbing emotion exposed after decades. This was the first time they had ever come close to acknowledging what had existed between them before. It struck Wendy as wholly selfish, wholly _Peter_, that he should play the wronged party. Of course, she did not intend to let him play the victim when he was the abuser. There was nothing he could do to her now. She was already his captive, had already run his gauntlet of torments, she was simply tired. But she would not allow him to belittle the wrong committed against her on this very soil.

"I was not a coward!" she shouted up at him. "You tricked me! You made me think you cared, made me think I _loved_ you, and then you sent me away!"

"You _quailed_. I would have given you _everything_," Peter growled, "and you couldn't even give me a kiss."

"I gave you a kiss!" she retorted immediately, furiously.

"You gave me a _thimble!_" he hollered.

He reached up, dug a hand under his collar and, to Wendy's utter astonishment, produced her worn silver thimble pierced through with a length of crude Neverland string. He dangled it in front of her like the evidence it was.

"You kept it?" she breathed disbelievingly. She almost reached out to touch it but it disappeared from view. Her eyes shot up to Peter's face. His expression was the one she had gotten used to seeing since returning to the island: something stormy and ravenous that made his eyes almost black and his jaw clench to definition.

"You gave me a thimble," he repeated, "_I_ gave you a _kiss_."

Then, he gave her another one.

_Lead me to the truth and I will follow you with my whole life_

**END**

**Secret Santa Prompt:**

I need 2003 symbolism. The first time Wendy goes to the island, when the Shadow takes her, she falls for Peter. She offers him a kiss, but he pretends ignorance because he wants to see what she'll do. She gives him a thimble instead and he gives her the acorn. 100+ years later, Wendy discovers he kept her thimble, even after he said he didn't care for her.

All lyrics from "White Blank Page" by **Mumford & Sons**


End file.
